153 - Finding & Keeping Gen Z Talent - Anthony Onesto

You're listening to Win Win, an entrepreneurial community with your host, Ben Wolf.

And welcome to the Win Win podcast. This is Ben Wolfe, your host. We're going to learn in this episode today about finding and keeping Gen Z talent. Very interesting topic. And before we get into that and before I introduce my guest today, I do want to encourage you and ask you, honestly ask, beg, plead to make this content that we're sharing here, tools and knowledge that is useful for business owners more accessible to more people through the algorithms of the all powerful, you know, platforms that be wherever you are watching or listening to this to, like, follow, subscribe, leave a review, whatever the platform allows you to do that is going to support me, is going to support the guests we have here. It's going to make this content available to more people. So I definitely ask that you do that. Share this with other people will be a big help to us and by extension, to all the people who are getting the content and knowledge that you are now getting. So with that, I want to get into introducing our guest today. He is the Chief People Officer at suzy, which is a consumer insights research platform. He's the author of the new employee contracts, how to Find, Keep and Elevate Gen Z Talent. Link to that in the description and you can learn more about him at anthonyanesto.com o n e s t o1st.com anthonyanesto.com and with that, I give you, Anthony. Welcome to the episode in the show today.

Thank you so much, Ben. Yeah, usually I say it's the nest between the O's, but 1st between the.

O's, maybe that's probably easier. Nest between the O's. Oh, I like that. Okay. I like that. I like that. Well, let's get into the conversation today, which is, I guess the first thing I want to ask you is if you could give us a look. This is a very interesting topic. I was really, honestly very excited about this because I love to, you know, bash Gen Z with the best of them. And so I thought, I thought that, you know, I realize, I mean, that hitting aside Gen Z, that's the next generation of talent, right? Millennials are, you know, you know, about to turn 40, you know, and, and so it's, this is the next, this is the next generation of talent, right? And it's going to be an irreplaceable part of the future of every business. And so not something we spend enough time thinking about, or at least I don't spend enough time thinking about. They're very excited about the topic today and I want to ask you please if you can give us a quick two minute history, a quick two minute background so that we have some sort of context for where you came from and how we got to be talking about this topic today.

Yeah, sure. And like you said, I mean I think it's anytime a new idea or a way of thinking comes into an existing construct, we attack it like a virus. So not surprising in terms of what Gen Z is looking for. So hopefully we'll clarify a lot of that and get some understanding today. But really excited and thank you again for having me. I think for me, I mean it's been a long resume so we don't want to go. It's not going to be in two minutes. I'll go fairly quick and say that I failed my first job as an accountant. I was an accountant, I studied accounting in college and they fired me, like you're not good at this. And I said thank God because I really hate this. And then moved into HR and recruiting where I've sat for almost 20 plus years now, particularly in the startup space, doing it for startups that are very early on helping to build, recruit, built operations. I actually jumped out at one point and helped build a startup here in the US that was expanding from, from overseas and went on the commercial side of the business, which was incredibly hard. Did that for, for a couple of years I worked for a design firm out of Toronto. Same thing and then most recently as you said, jumped into Suzy where I'm now the cpo. So you know, you know, they pull me back in as they say in the Godfather. So H R pulled me back in. But of course Matt Brighton and the CEO, the CEO of Suzy did that. So yeah, lifelong HR person, I like to say I got a PhD in startup because I've been in startups for 20 plus years and I like doing a lot of creative stuff on the side. When I'm not being an HR person, I advise HR tech companies. I built a comic book series called Ella the Engineer to encourage more girls to pursue stem. So really love to diversify my professional portfolio and really excited and of course now wrote a book during COVID about Gen Z and we can talk about all the reasons why and, and all that fun stuff. But so happy, so happy to be here. Thanks man.

Yeah, no, that's, it's a great background and you know, and I guess, and I, I also love talking to you know, meet the CPO at Susie just because Susie's a company that I've used Not in, you know, in a previous business, in a previous iteration. You know, we, we used you guys to, you know, just do these like random polls and like, whatever it was, you know, just try to get useful information. So that was a great tool. So it's cool to meet somebody from Susie. But let me ask you this. We, we, we. I started off by talking about how, you know, we bashed Gen Z and like, you know, all this, all the stuff that we make fun of and like that. The great episode of Saturday Night Live with Elon Musk and like having the Gen zers on like Star Trek Enterprise and like, what that would, what that would look like, you know, trying to apply the work, what the supposed workplace requirements to a Star Trek environment. Which is, which is funny. But the kidding aside, how, how real are the cultural differences, I guess, between, let's say, Gen Z and Millennials? Are these just talking points and as you say, people just attacking like a virus or, you know, how real are the differences and what are the differences between those generations?

Yeah, I think, I think as you get closer to generations, they often have similarities. And of course, we're talking in generalization. So every human, frankly, is a bit different. But, but when we looked at the research, I mean, I think when you go from generation to generation, whether it's baby boomers or Xers or millennials, what, what happens is the, the cultural norms change because it's a different error. Right? So Millennials and I wrote the book. The reason I wrote the book was because when millennials did come into the workforce, we were all surprised. Oh, what, what? They want, you know, growth and they want all these things and, and maybe they want gigs and other things. Right? And we were all surprised in sort of this different thinking because as an Xer, I was thinking of things very differently. They grew up in a different decade and generation. Right? And now with Gen Z, we find that with Millennials and even with Xers, I'll loop that together in this, in this particular point is they knew a world pre digital. They knew a world that was prior to the Internet, even though I would say Millennials knew less of that world. Xers, we knew a lot of that world. Gen Z knows nothing of a world prior to digital. The iPhone was launched in, I believe, 2007, kind of middle of where this generation sits. They were kids. I remember my own three. I have three kids that are Gen Z inspirations for the book also. They were young, working on an iPad, and it was so intuitive to them. And I remember just like it didn't require us anything but other than handing it to them. And it kind of just felt intuitive in terms of the feel. So this generation knows nothing of a world that was analog and mobile, frankly, where millennials and extras remember a pre Internet world, but even remember a pre mobile world to, to a certain degree in terms of the capabilities since the iPhone had, had come out. So I think that's one of the key, key elements here. And it's unprecedented access not only to, to global information, but also to anything in the world. If you think about where we stand now, this generation, this idea of sort of instant gratification was something. Because you can order something on Amazon and literally have it in an hour or two. Right. I remember a time where you actually had to order something in a catalog and it didn't come for weeks and you were, there was no tracking of that. Like you just were surprised when it showed up. This generation, very much so. So that, you know, there's so many different nuances to all this and so many differences. But that is a key factor. The fact that they were born digital was. Is a key factor that kind of transcends all the research.

What. So that's interesting. But like, how does that play itself out or like what effects does that difference of digital and mob and just growing up with that already as you know, just like with the mother's milk. Right. So how does, how does that difference, I guess play itself out when we're looking for talent, right. Kids are coming out of college or out of graduate school now. How do, how, you know, how does, I guess, how do those underlying factors affect the way we would interact with them, I guess in the, in the workforce as potential team members?

Sure. Yeah, we could, we could start a little bit before then, before they even get into the workforce. So if you take the two elements of both digital and access to global information in, in regard, you now know that like if you're an organization that is perpetuating that you are a diverse organization, you're posting things on LinkedIn, you're posting things on Instagram and a lot of times it's a picture of your, your, your company. This generation has access to information to something called LinkedIn where they can actually look at who are your board of directors. They have, you have them on your website, they can look at your leadership. And if you're perpetuating diversity, but all your board members are white males or all your leaders are white males and there's no gender diversity, there's no ethnic diversity, they're not even going to apply to your job. They have access to instant. So before with I'm going to put, you know, millennials, I'll even put myself in. We didn't have LinkedIn when I first when, you know, and LinkedIn is, is something that just, you know, even though it's a two decade old organization to a degree, like I didn't have access to the information so I didn't know what the board of directors look like. I had no idea who your leaders were in your organization. They have and they're really good at research. Given that Suzy is a research platform, we know this to be true. They are really good at research. So they're not even going to apply. So start doing the hard work now. That's, that's hard. Like you have to diversify your board, you have to diversify your leadership. It's good for business, but it's also going to be good to attract this generation. And you'll never know because they won't apply to your job. They're just like, oh, I'm not going to go work for them if this is important to me. The other piece is just purely more tactically, let's say, okay, you passed the test. They've looked at your, your company, you have pretty good mission, you have diverse background, they're ready now to apply. And, and your recruiting process is the traditional recruiting process. We all know it, right? You go to the career site, you click on the link, you fill out your name, your email, then it asks you to upload your resume, then it asks you to connect your LinkedIn. And then like all of these things, this friction that we've created in the recruiting process, remember this is a generation that was sitting as children on iPads, just sort of with a beautiful interface with an easy to use application and operating system, are now being asked to, oh, connect your LinkedIn or now upload a resume. Oh, that doesn't pull all my information in. And so you still need me to fill out my address, I'm out, I'm gone. And you're going to see with this generation, unless it's mobile first. First of all, because they're mobile savvy generation, it also has to be frictionless in terms of like the assumptions of a digital experience that's very consumer based on recruiting. So this is where they're non negotiable. They're not going to apply or they're going to get frustrated with your organization unless these two things. So that's a very practical example. Even before they get into your organization.

Or even get the interview. Well, what, what do people do or what kind of tools should people be thinking about doing to make their, to make their application process more frictionless and more mobile? First.

Yeah, just a couple of things. So one, we're a victim to our own tools and I will say that no recruiter loves their ats. It's unfortunate. I think it's an incredible market opportunity.

And for those out there, that applicant tracking system, just Applicant tracking system.

So this is the system that whenever you apply it goes into the system where then recruiters look at your background, all that sort of stuff. So that's what an at house is. I, I would argue, you know, if, if you've ever, and I'm sorry if you haven't, but if you've ever ordered a pizza from Domino's on their app. And I say this all the time when I talk about this. You order the pizza and then it tracks where that pizza is. Is it in the oven, Is it being prepared? Is it being delivered? So in theory I can know where my pizza is right now. And by the way, there's a little secret. It doesn't really track its time based someone. When I was talking to someone, they enlightened me on that and I was so disappointed. I'm like actually tracking.

There's. There's a barcode on the pizza that's.

Like, yeah, like that barcode moves from left to right to say it's in the oven, it's. Or it's being prepared. Right. But the point here is like they do that so they know that where is your. I, I know where my pizza is, but if I go to your website and apply, I have no idea where my applications. I have no clue. Right. So the opportunity. And I don't. There was one company, I, I really wish I knew their name but they were thinking when they're the ones that actually told me, hey, that by the way, that Domino's pizza thing is, is kind of fraud. It's, it's time base is not really in those different processes. I was so disappointed. It was like someone just told me there was no tooth fairy. But. Because I use that example a lot. But the point is it's a consumer facing application. If I can know where my pizza is, I should know where my application is, where my resume is, where is it? Is it being reviewed? Because on the back end of these solutions we have these stages in these ATS and these applicant tracking systems and it's being reviewed by a recruiter, being reviewed by A hiring manager, like we have these things. So I think it's. The first step is apply for your own jobs and if you are frustrated with the process, they are absolutely going to be frustrated by 10 times, if not 100 times. Right. Go through your own processes and see where there's opportunity is there. Duplicity. If I upload, if I connect my LinkedIn, why do I have to add my name and my email? It should just pull everything in. Why do I have to then upload a resume after you got my link LinkedIn and then you ask for a cover letter and like chat GPT is already building cover letters. They're probably useless. They've always been useless, frankly, in my point of view, but now even more so. It's all that sort of stuff. So go through very. Go through your own recruiting process and.

See where there's a favorite one, a favorite ATS or two that you could recommend that would, you know, easily kind of give people that experience now. Oh my gosh, that's so discouraging.

It really is. I, I do this one I talked to that kind of overlays on top of it is really interesting and I'm just upset that I don't remember their name because I think they were thinking of it in the right way. But no, I mean there's, there's a lot of popular Lever and Greenhouse and other folks in this space, but I still, I think they're doing a decent job in getting us to this place. But no, I think it's a, you know, if you're an entrepreneur, you're in the recruiting space. I think it's, it's a, it's a difficult space. It's not an easy back end solution because there's a lot of processes and requirements and compliance. But on the front end, or what I like to call front stage or front of stage, there's an incredible opportunity out there because there just isn't, unfortunately.

Interesting if you think of that.

Actually, I do have one recommendation. I'm sorry, it slipped my mind. So what we've been able to do is we partnered with a company called Career Puck and what they've effectively done is recreated our career page. So you still have to go into the ats, but they're like an overlay. And the interesting thing is they made it a lot cleaner and easy to apply, but they've also added audio on our job descriptions, creating a more interactive experience. Video is not going to work on mobile. No one's going to look at your job description and click a video and watch it. But audio, they will, they'll listen to. So it's almost like a podcast, what we're doing today. They interviewed me, they interviewed our CEO Matt Brin, and a couple of our team members in various different departments. And now that audio, you can listen to the entire podcast or it's snippets next to the job descriptions that allow for more interactive experience. So Career Puck is a, is an example. They're not necessarily an ats, although they may be one someday, but they actually have a really interesting overlay. On top of that, you can also add other experiences, other audio, like they're doing a really interesting job.

Interesting. So what else would you say about, let's say, okay, somebody's applied. Right. What else would you say about, I guess, through the application process, the onboarding process, or the retention process? What are some of the key takeaways that people need to know about finding and retaining Gen Z talent?

Sure. I mean, outside of if I think of the application process as back of stage, front of stage kind of things is does your company have a mission or a purpose? I think that is a critical factor. Even again, a lot of this applies to even before the process of the application. But we've been talking about mission and purpose for about 10 years plus in HR, realizing how important that is, that there's actually business impact in having a mission and vision. That's very important to this generation. Thinking about, everyone talks about work life balance. There's no such thing. It's work life integration. It's the ability. And this generation thinks about that in a way where, hey, if I'm doing work and I want to take, you know, 12 to 1 to go to the gym or do something else, they're not afraid to look and do those kind of things. And it's important, especially not only physical health, wellness, but also mental health. This generation is not. I know at a time when I started working, if I ever said something about mental health, it was actually a detractor it would look down upon in an organization. This generation is very upfront about mental health, talking about it, telling folks about it, looking for opportunities to help with mental health. So mission is important, obviously. I've talked about diversity. Super important for this generation as we think about it. And again, you can't fake it anymore. Like there used to be a check the box type of mentality here. So a lot of companies would be like, yeah, we're diverse. And then you would look at their senior leadership, you would look at their board of directors outside of sort of independent employees or employees in general. There was really no diversity and they're going to do the research on that stuff. So there's a lot of things like this is, I want to be very clear and I'm building a matrix, four quadrant matrix on how to become like a future, future forward company or a Gen Z prepared company. This is some hard stuff. Like this is not easy at all. But we really need to think about all of those things. And then especially as you think about with this generation, they're the, one of the biggest aspects. So there's two misunderstandings about Gen Z. One is that they're going to job jump. Like, no, they're actually looking for more safety because of all the things that their parents went through, economic challenges in 2008. They've seen racial inequity and upheaval, they've seen climate change. They are looking for safety and security. But you have to deliver that right. And we've seen, you know, everyone doing reductions in force and firings in the tech space. Like it's not sending a great message to Gen Z, but of course it's business. I understand it. So all of these things are important. But then once they're in your organization, the manager, the leader, they're not afraid to ask for things. They're not afraid to call people out. These norms. They're just like these expectations that they have are very high. So from a leadership perspective, putting them at the center of like the, the people. So in my quadrant it was how do you balance business and the humanity? Right? That's the ultimate equation. The good news is everything's going that way anyway. It's already proven to show that if you do good business and do good by your people, that you actually have business success. But that's what this generation is looking for. So leaders really need to put the human element at the center of their leadership. With Gen Z specifically.

And what do you mean when you say looking for safety and security? Can you say more about that? Does that mean that people are going to be jumping less than they would in the past? If you're, you know, if people are taken care of and respected and you know, and they have opportunities for growth, then they want to jump less than people did in the past? Is that that's correct?

Absolutely. You're seeing, you know, a lot. So another thing is a lot of Gen Z employees have parents that are Gen Xers now. Not all. There are some boomers, there's some millennials. On the, on the, on the, on the Outskirts of it. But for the most part, Gen Xers in that generation, obviously, safety and security. Yes. Gen X or Unite, we're all about loyalty. Right. We were all. Because frankly, when we joined the workforce, it was leveraged to the, to the employer. Right. Like we just had to take jobs and we didn't, we, you know, there were compromises we made. We didn't have access to information. But yes, safety and security is going to be paramount for this generation, which is, it's, it's kind of the miss What I see in the research is not what's being perpetuated in the media. Like they're calling them same thing as millennials. They're entitled, they want to be social stars. Not true at all. It's not true. Listen, they do, they love TikTok. Yes, that's their, that's their choice. And a lot of the, the, the, the, the interest in TikTok can be looked at in terms of the mechanics of TikTok and that could be translated into the workforce and training and other things. We can talk about that. But they are all about safety and security because they've seen so much change in their lifetimes and experienced it through their parents and through climate change. You know, we're already talking about the hottest, you know, last four weeks on Earth. Right. All of that is out there. They're seeing so much change there that they are looking for that. But you're right, you're spot on. If you're not clicking on all the things that they're not going to compromise on there are, they are going to move like, but if you are, they want to stay with you and they want to grow with you, which is great. It's an opportunity.

Right. What's the biggest one or two myths, I guess, or, or stereotypes about Gen Z workforce talent that is off base.

Well, the first one is the, the one I just talked about is that safety and security, I think a lot of what you're seeing in the media.

That is good news to me. Right. I, I, I wouldn't have thought of it that way.

No, I mean it's perpetuated in a very different way externally and I think it's the reason why is again, we don't understand. This is a new generation coming into the workforce. So let's talk to them. Let's research. That's what we did, I did with the book. I use Suzy, which is a market research platform, to talk to Gen Z, both quantitative and qualitative, like, what's going on? I even said in the book to a bunch of Gen Z influencers and said, hey, did I get this right? And they were like, spot on. This is, you know, again, every individual is different and there's going to be nuances, but for the most part, yeah, they absolutely agreed. It's that safety and security because everything else is so unstable in their lives. I mean, we've seen global pandemics. They're working from home, they schooled from home for some of the younger generation in Gen Z, So a lot of instability. So, so that stability, super, super important to them. And I think that the spoiled nature or entitled nature, I think at face value, I can see that. So there, there's not a hesitation. I think with our generations in millennials, they're not, they're not in their, their cultural norms of how they've grown up. They're not going to call out companies for not doing things within companies. You're not going to go to your, your, you know, public and Slack channel and say, hey, Company X. You're not doing X, Y and Z. This generation is uncompromising. So I don't think it's entitlement, although there might be a piece of that. They're coming into what I would say record unemployment. So they have leverage. They're. We're now seeing, you know, if you, you subscribe to Peter Zion, who wrote a book called the End of the World is Just the Beginning. If you look at the demographic challenges the entire world is seeing, they have even more leverage. Because if there's less younger people and more boomers and, and other generations retiring, their position and leverage becomes even, even more so powerful. There is a position of that, but they're uncompromising. They have, they have no fear in terms of calling out companies, even internally. They say, hey, you said one thing and now you're doing something else. That's not cool. And so the misunderstanding could be that they're not necessarily entitled, but they just grew up in a place where they voice, they have no hesitation to voice what they want and they're not compromising. I think a lot of the former, like I said, I'm an Xer. We didn't have access to information. If someone paid me a lot of money and maybe they weren't diverse, maybe that was okay and I compromised for that. And it's so funny, I was in a webinar talking about the book and someone in the chat said, are they asking for too much? And I said, okay, that's an interesting question. And I listed all the things mission work, Life balance, mental health, you know, diversity. I said pick which one of those you don't agree with. Right. So there. None of what they're asking for are things that any of us would go, oh, you know what? I don't agree with that. They're just unrelenting. Right. They're, they're non negotiable in these things. And so that idea of entitlement I think is, is misunderstood.

I appreciate that. The, the, the last thing I want to ask you about is talk about the new employee contract. That's the title of your book about like, what would you, why do you decide to focus the title of the book on a contract? Like as opposed to the experience itself or the way the businesses run? What do you mean by that? About focusing on the, on the contract itself. And I guess what would you say the biggest one highlight about how the contract needs to be different?

Sure. Yeah. And I think when you know the contract itself in the book and in the concept is the theoretical. Right. It's the metaphor of the relationship of employees to employers. It's not the literal, we need to change all the offer letters. And it started my dad worked for the Same company for 40 years, went into their mail room, went to college at the same time and got a bunch of promotions and became their controller. I don't name the company because I like to save the innocent. And so he was forced later on in his career to reapply for his job and then didn't get it enforced into retirement. So imagine reapplying for your job and not getting your job. It's just like so the idea after 40 years, it's like, thanks but no thanks, you're, you're out. And I don't blame his boss, I don't blame the company, I blame the construct. So what had happened over the years? So a lot of companies and they did a bunch of research on sort of the, the, the or the, the business construct. A lot of businesses started locally, right. They were locally grown and they served the local community. They, they served the people in those communities and even employed those communities. Now as we scaled that change, it didn' global national. But also something happened in the early 70s and late 80s where we started to focus more on short term gains. So every investor said you need to hit your quarterly earnings report, which means every board would be measured by that, which means every CEO would be measured by that, which means every leader would be measured by that. Right. So we started looking at things more short term than long term. And I think that is the contract that has been eroding over the last bunch of years and you're starting. It's so funny because a lot of companies are like I can't believe they job jump. I can't believe Quiet quitting. How dare they. I'm like, we start, you know, Billy Joel, we started the fire. We said you know what, we're no longer interested in this contract. We're looking at it more short term. So if we don't hit our economic numbers in Q1, we're going to downside and fire people. We're going to have them reapply for their jobs and not get in and force them into retirement. So what I, what I wanted to do was make a statement on that, that we needed a new employee contract, that we needed to combine both business and humanity at the same time. And I think we're starting to see trends toward that. We're starting to see investment funds look at human capital metrics as a way to invest. So I think we're getting there. But it starts at that high level economic construct. And that's hopefully the message that I'm sending with that title and with the book but also with the lens of hey, here's some practical things. And the really cool thing is when I came up with that concept and I noticed that and I did the research with Gen Z, those two worlds crossed and I said this is the buck. So I'm going to make a statement but I'm also going to provide practical reasons why you really need to re establish the new employee contract. Because by the way, 90 plus percent of your company value is people is intangible assets called people. And with demographic challenges coming, your only competitive advantage unless you input AI. And of course AI is going to take some jobs and some roles. It's inevitable. But for the most part your competitive advantage is going to be people and there's going to be less of them in the world. We really need to get this contract right. So long winded answer but kind of these two worlds coming together perfectly right now.

I super appreciate that and definitely people can learn more, you know and possibly seek out your help. @anthonyonesto.com you you could check out his book the New Employee how to Find, Keep and Elevate Gen Z Talent. And Anthony, just truly appreciate you coming on, truly appreciate you sharing this and this is an under talked about topic and so very happy to have had you come on and be able to talk about this.

Thanks for having me Ben, really appreciate it.

All right, thank you. And everybody else. We'll see you on the other side. Thank you.

You're listening to Win Win, an entrepreneurial community with your host, Ben Wolf.